


we go together

by guardianoffun



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: (of a sort), F/M, Friends With Benefits, Holidays, Morse pets a dog, Old Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23116384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardianoffun/pseuds/guardianoffun
Summary: “We’re not teenagers anymore Morse,” she says quietly, wondering for a moment when they got so old. How aged and grey they have become - perhaps Morse a little more so, she thinks smugly.Shirley and Morse take a holiday somewhere far from work, for the first time in a while.
Relationships: Endeavour Morse & Shirley Trewlove, Endeavour Morse/Shirley Trewlove
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	we go together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).

> completely inspired by jasmiinitee's art over on tumblr! we just... we just love these two... so much.... 
> 
> I can't embed links properly but here's the link to the gorgeous art this inspired: https://jasmiinitee.tumblr.com/post/612217305405030400/thenk-you-tee-for-being-the-co-founder-of-our

Shirley wakes just as the Jag slowed, and their home for the next few weeks appears over the crest of the hill. Her neck twinges a little as she sits up from where she has been slouched against the window. Catching sight of herself in the wing mirror, she runs her fingers through her hair, pushing it back into the waves she’d curled in that morning. 

Morse glances over at her and smiles softly as he pulls the car off onto the dirt road that leads to the door.

“Ah, she wakes,” he says with his eyes shining. 

Not convinced he isn’t laughing at her somehow, she rolls her eyes

“Oh sorry, I didn't snore did I?” she drawls, looking out at the house slowly coming into view. A sweet, somewhat crumbling cottage tucked many miles outside of Oxford and London. Somewhere neither of them knew. Somewhere they could lose themselves completely. 

“Yes,” Morse says. “You did, but luckily I already knew that. Good for you, I find it somewhat endearing.” 

She swats his arm and he chortles to himself as he pulls the Jag onto the drive. Stepping out, the warm haze of summer washed over Shirley, who stretches her arms and takes a deep breath. Much nicer than the commercial smog of the city. Greener too, trees almost swamping the house with it’s overflowing window boxes and paint-peeled door. It’s like something out of a fairytale. 

She leaves Morse to the bags - she’s not at work, he can do the heavy lifting - and heads straight for the door. The key is tucked inside a flower-pot with hand painted daisies on it, so she fishes it out and lets herself in. Someone has left a basket of logs in the porch, and there’s a note on the unit, but she breezes past them. Trailing her way through the small space she flings open windows and plumps cushions till she finds the bathroom. It’s mid-afternoon but it’s her holiday, so she’ll indulge in a bath. 

Whilst the water fills the tub she ambles back towards the front of the house and finds Morse bent over in the fridge, filling it with their modest selection of cheese, wine and fruits. There’s a few other kitchen staples but this week was about indulgence. 

“I’m running a bath,” she says, leaning against the counter and watching him pack. He peers over his shoulder at her, indicating to the bottle in hand. 

“Drink?” 

She wrinkles her nose. 

“Let it cool first, maybe after?” 

Fridge packed, Morse turns back to her and lets out a long breath. 

“Well if there’s nothing to drink, whatever will I do without you?” He wanders over, catches her hips. “I’ll be bored sick.” She traces a finger across his chin. 

“Well you could always come join me.” 

She slips from his grasp before he can respond, and laughs when he pinches her arse as she goes. 

He does join her, in the end, though only to kneel beside the tub and wash her back. He pushes a damp curl from her face and kisses her cheek, then shuffles off whilst the water is still warm. Shirley emerges a while later, smelling like citrus and wrapped in a thick robe. By the time she’s dressed again in warm red, summery tones, Morse is lying on the sofa, arms across his chest and mind lost in thought, a record spinning in the corner. She perches on the arm and runs her fingers through his thinning hair. 

“Fancy a walk?” She asks. 

* * *

The path they find is a quiet one, perhaps busier when the dog walkers are out, but mid-afternoon it’s silent, although not really. There’s not many people, but the path is still alive with noise. It’s an old, footworn thing that loops slowly through trees, a thick forest some mile wide leading to a village on the other side. Sunlight works its way through the leaves above, leaving dappled shadows dancing across them. 

Shirley’s arm is looped through Morse’s, her hand resting atop his. He traces her knuckles with his thumb as they stroll, and she presses against his arm, leans her head against his shoulder. They drift through conversation, but it’s easy to lapse into a soft silence, listening to the birds and their footsteps and just breathing in the summer air. Every so often, Morse points out a particular bird or flower, some tidbit picked up from afternoons in Max’s garden. Shirley drags him over to the odd dog they come across, insisting despite his protests that they stop to chat so she can sneak a quick pet in. 

One old woman and her labrador mistake them for a couple, and neither cares to correct her. Edgar, the puppy, is running circles around Morse, jumping up at him excitedly. The woman laughs with Shirley.

“Have you two got one?” she asks, distracting Edgar back with a treat. Morse barks a laugh, and Edgar yaps back at him. 

“No,” Shirley says, absently brushing fur from Morse’s jacket. “He won’t let me have one, in case I love it more than him.” 

He makes an offended noise at that, but grabs her hand still. 

“Well, it’s true!” she insists, and all three of them laugh at that. They bid Edgar and his mother goodbye, and continue their walk, bickering lightheartedly as they go. 

Somewhere, in the thickest part of the wood, where the trees crowd in above them, casting long shadows over the ground, they come across a rabbit on their path. A tiny thing, no bigger than Shirley’s fist, and fast as lightning. It flits across the grass, freezes for a split second and stares at them, before darting away. Then another follows suit, and another. Five rabbits in all pause their walk, and Shirley has to hold her fingers to her lips to keep from crying out. She’s practically crying by the time they pass, and feels a little foolish for it. 

“I’ve never- oh how cute Morse, I’ve not seen a one that small before,” she clutches his hand as they watch the bundles disappear into the undergrowth. “Don’t get that many in London.” 

Morse lifts her hand and kisses her fingers, and when she looks back he has a soft sort of look in his eyes. 

“What?” she asks, defensively. Cool and collected detective inspector she may be, she can’t help getting a little soft over cute animals. 

“Nothing,” he reassures her, running his thumb along her cheek. “You’re just… very sweet sometimes, you know that?” 

He leans in to kiss her then, soft and chaste till she stumbles back and bumps a tree, which he takes as a sign to drop his hands to her waist and kiss her fiercely. She’s a little worried she’ll scuff her skirt, but Morse chases those thoughts away with deft touches along the hem. Crooked fingers push it up, track delicate paths along the skin of her thighs. 

Her lips part in shock as he teases, higher, and Morse grins against her. 

“Morse,” she hisses, not wholly unhappy about it. “There’s people-”

“No there’s not,” he breaths against her lips. She is distracted for a moment by the smear of lipstick on his cheek. Red’s a good look on him. 

“There could be,” she shifts her legs, trapping his hand. He wriggles his fingers and eyebrows and she laughs. 

“Isn’t that half the fun?” He drops his head and sucks at her neck, making her shiver with delight. “I don’t recall you minding last time,  _ Mrs. Morse _ , _ ” _ he growls against her skin, flinging her back some fifteen years or so, to a walk home from a school neither of them belonged to; to a secluded clearing and a picnic. The food, if she remembered rightly, had gone largely uneaten by the time the sun set. 

Tempting as the offer may be, there’ll be another man and his dog along soon. She catches him for one last kiss.

“We’re not teenagers anymore Morse,” she says quietly, wondering for a moment when they got so old. How aged and grey they have become - perhaps Morse a little more so, she thinks smugly. Yet here they are messing about against a tree like kids again. 

“We never  _ were  _ Shirley,” he says, almost wistful, as he pulls back. In unison, they reach for each other's hand, and both smile as they interlock their fingers. No, he’s right they weren’t, but it’s not like they haven’t had years already, or that they won’t have years to come. They’ve forged something special, between them; something indefinable but something  _ theirs _ . No matter the time or distance, the hows or whys, they’ve got each other, and really that’s all they need. 

They walk a little while longer, as the sun starts dipping lower, and break the trees by four o’clock. A quaint little place, with a somewhat bustling highstreet. They glance through the windows of a bakery, the butchers and the newsagents, all sat in a row. There’s a steady stream of people about, flitting between shops and cafes. 

They find one tea-shop with a mint-green door, and Morse disappears inside, returning a moment later with an obscenely large Belgian bun. They share it as they walk, passing it between them. Shirley gets to the middle and plucks the cherry from the top - Morse likes to tell her quite adamantly they’re the best part. She holds it out to him and his eyes light up. It’s the little things, one supposes. In return he lets her finish the last of it, then he lifts a hand and catches her chin gently. 

“You’ve got-” he swipes at her lip with his thumb. “There you go.” He flicks the crumb onto the ground. 

Their wandering finds them in the doorway of a bookshop, the pair of them lured in by the smell of old books and the tantalizing ‘SALE’ sign in the window. Nearly an hour is lost trawling the shelves, splitting up and caching each other’s eye through the lines of books. Hands meet over leatherbound volumes, and Morse steals a kiss in the _ Natural History  _ section. 

They leave some forty pound poorer, Morse’s arms laden with bags. He staggers down the road so pitifully, Shirley steers him towards the swinging sign of a pub. He drops into a chair with a put-upon groan, rubbing at his fingers as Shirley pulls his wallet from his pocket. 

She gets him a pint, herself a gin and tonic, and they sit in a busy corner, watching the world and his wife go by. 

It’s over their drink that work comes up, because it always does with Morse. Bored without a case, he asks about her station, if there’s any loose threads he can pull at whilst he puts his feet up. She tells him about the latest series of murders, what looks to be an angry girlfriend lashing out at any girl her old boyfriend seems to look at. Morse hums over it, makes a few leaps that aren’t  _ too  _ impossible, and gives Shirley a couple of ideas to throw at her sergeants. 

Morse goes for the next round and Shirley insists on a change in conversation, needing to hear properly about the gossip in Oxford. Morse has plenty of stories, they hadn’t actually spoken in a while before coming away together. He offers regards from all the old lot, well Jim and Max - neither likes to think how the numbers have dwindled over the years that much. Morse slides over that, plies her with tales of Lewis instead. She’s yet to meet Morse’s young sergeant, but if the glowing reviews Morse tries to give under the guise of gruff admonishment are anything to go by, he’s a lovely man. She reminds herself to take the bloke to lunch one day, a well done for putting up with Morse. 

They have one more drink for the road, before spilling out onto the street a little lighter on their feet. They bump and wobble a little ungracefully, giggling like children at some inane joke, as Morse flags down a taxi. She bundles him in, perhaps leering at his backside a little longer than is polite and then drops down on the seat beside him. Stretched out on the back row, she drops right onto his chest, and listens to his chest rumble as he gives the driver their address. 

Eyes closed and head buzzing pleasantly, Shirley almost falls asleep on him, especially when his hand starts rubbing circles on her back. He smells like cologne and cigarettes and books and sunshine, and it’s almost as intoxicating as the gin in her blood. Lips sneak to her temple, and he kisses her hair. 

The next thing she knows, she’s blinking awake and watching their cottage appear over the hill once again. A touch of deja vu makes her skin tingle, but this is a little different she supposes. The sky is a soft lavender as the sun finally slips beyond the horizon, the lights left on in the windows a soft yellow against the worn brickwork. Morse nudges her - she hadn’t realised the car had stopped moving - and they extract themselves. Morse pays whilst Shirley hauls the bag of books inside, dropping their treasures on the dinner table. 

She sifts through them, dividing them up whilst Morse crashes about the kitchen behind her. When he turns around he’s got a knife in hand, an onion in the other, and a garish plastic apron wrapped around his middle, that insists anyone in the vicinity of the oven kiss the chef. 

“Lasagne?” he asks. 

She crosses to him, pulls on the apron so she can follow its instructions. Full, his hands wave uselessly beside them. 

“Sounds lovely; can I trust you to do it yourself?” 

“Of course,” he says indignantly, spinning around to attack the onion with gusto. “Prepare to be amazed Shirley Trewlove.” 

Heading towards the living room with one of her books, she nods sympathetically. 

“Of course. Pass the pizza place leaflet though will you - just in case?”

In the end the lasagna is, actually, fairly decent. Shirley is pleasantly surprised, even more so when Morse produces a chocolate cake for dessert, which he freely admits is one of Max’s. They eat, drink and laugh in excess as night falls for the first time this week. 

Sitting on the sofa, Shirley’s feet on Morse’s lap as he dutifully massages the aches out of her legs, they watch the last of the evenings soap, catch the ten o’clock news before Morse rises to turn the set off. Somehow despite it being their holiday, the first proper day off either has had in ages, it feels as though they’ve barely stopped. Tiredness of the nicest sort sets in, a warm sort of haze that calls them to bed. It’s a grand thing, four poster and extra pillows. Shirley had stuck a hot batter bottle in it half an hour ago, and Morse dug out an extra blanket. They bundle under the covers and breath a collective sigh of relief. 

Perhaps tomorrow night, they’ll wear themselves out and make proper use of the bed, but both of them are quite content to curl into each other, Morse with one arm around Shirley’s middle, and let sleep take them quickly. Just before her eyes drop shut though, she twists around, and pecks a kiss in his cheek. 

“What’s that for?” he asks, already half-asleep. She shrugs. 

“Nothing, I’m just…” 

Morse blinks up at her, those gorgeous grey eyes crinkling with a smile. 

“Glad I’ve got you,” she whispers, before lying back down. Morse laughs fondly.

“I’m glad I’ve got you too.” 


End file.
